Sunday, December 30, 2007

Sunday Afternoon Music Video - Go Tell it On the Mountain

Our Sunday's closing hymn was the African American Spiritual "Go Tell it On the Mountain". I found this video of James Taylor singing this hymn and thought I would share his rendition of this old hymn.

What did your congregation sing on this 6th day of Christmas?

Did you place a hymn video on your blog of what you sang or heard today that was inspiring? If so, post a direct link to your blog entry in your comment using the following formulation:

We sang "Hark, the herald angels sing", "Love came down at Christmas","The First Nowell","What wondrous love is this", "Now yield ye thanks and praise"(I linked this to a midi file, do any of you know this one? I had not heard it before), whenever we sing an unfamiliar hymn, the congregation gets a little twitchy.

such a blessing to hear this beautiful music. My organist/gifted musician/wonderful friend called in at the very last moment - he was out in his car in the parking lot tossing his cookies. So we sang a capella. Note to self: don't ever, ever cut the music budget;)

P.S. I was not familiar with the hymn "The Hills are Bare at Bethlehem", so did a search and found a recording. Not sure if this is the tune or not, but if it is, it is beautiful. You can listen to it here

"The Hills are Bare at Bethlehem!!!" It's in the 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship, and I heard a fun anecdote about the song from good authority. Along with two (LCA, ALC) of the constituent church bodies of the current ELCA,the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod originally was one of the LBW compilers and still is listed as a copyright holder, but ultimately pulled out of the project for several reasons, one of them being they considered "The Hills are bare..." atheological! I agree it's a lovely tune and text.

I was visiting at a friend's church in the "bBig City" today and we closed with Go Tell it on the Mountain as well. They began with a carol sing which was quite dlightful, as we never seem to have time to sing enough of those lovely carols in this all too short season.

our choir women did "The Hills Are Bare at Bethlehem" on Christmas Eve and it was quite lovely. The tune is from Southern Harmony (usually used with The Lone Wild Bird) but for some reason always reminds me of Scotland. It's so lilting...I love it.

Creative service that worked out beautifully -- communal preaching! The text was Herod and the Holy Innocents and the senior pastor started with a few comments and then followed up with maybe four or five questions that memebers of the congregation addressed. Probably five - eight people responded to each question. We were sitting in circular rows in our fellowship hall which was more conducive to conversation than the sanctuary-pew set-up. We ended up with a sermon about power, justice, God's intervention, the mystery of evil, and the parallels in the Exodus and Holy Innocents stories. It was terrific.